When is hitting women okay?

So it has been too long since I have written. I could offer any number of excuses but suffice it to say that I am overwhelmed daily with the things I want to rant about.  So instead of writing about them , I have taken to torturing my circle of friends with my opinions on a myriad of issues.
A recent news story shook me out of my reverie, well okay not exactly a reverie, shook me out of my funk long enough to start writing on this blog again.
So a young woman on the beach at Wildwood was spotted by police having alcohol on the beach.  The questioning by police ended up in a video of the police punching her repeatedly because she resisted arrest.  Horrific. Heart stopping. The chief of police of Wildwood put the young punks, oops I mean policemen on desk duty, saying a thorough investigation would be conducted and that not all the videos of the incident had been released.  Suggesting that this beating by police of this young women could be discovered to be warranted! What? Say what?  Wait a minute! When did it become okay to hit a woman? A friend of mine replied. Good thing she was white otherwise they would have shot her! What?  What?  I cannot begin to express my sense of outrage as the video went viral and the talking heads brought it to the nightly news.   No one questioned hitting this women period.  The question was whether she deserved it or not! What? What?
So tell me that parents are teaching their sons that s it’s okay to hit a woman under certain circumstances.
Explain to me what you think children are taking away from this debacle.
The police have lost their way.  Not one of them seems to have a moral,human compass.and I don’t want to hear about a few bad apples.  Every day there is a story about police brutality. Every single day. Training is clearly not the answer. A baseline of “feeling threatened” is too vague and subjective to be allowed to stand. Police in other countries have managed truly threatening situations without resorting to violence. Why can't we figure this out?

Dereliction of duty

If you have ever doubted that colleges or other schools of higher education have become businesses -big business, then how do you explain such callous disregard for the very students they are expected to educate and dare we hope protect?   Again this week we we have learned the excruciating details of the death of a fraternity student left for 12 hours at the bottom of the stairs where he had fallen following a hazing that involved copious amounts of alcohol.
Currently the focus is on prosecuting the young men of that fraternity for leaving the young man at the bottom of the stairs without calling for help. They should be prosecuted. But holding them responsible does not address the larger problem.
As I see it the administration of the school, Penn State ,this college this time, needs to be held responsible.  What happened to administrations taking charge and making it clear that alcohol is not tolerated at their school. Since when, unless the financial bottom line is the only thing that matters, are children allowed to behave so irresponsibly or even illegally. When young people go to school even at the legal age of adulthood,18, who among us believes that gives them the unfettered right to do whatever they p,ease whenever they please. We ,in society, live within the bounds of rules and regulations and also ethical and moral boundaries.
For decades it was also understood that sending your child to school meant that they were under the watchful eye of the parental authority you   transferred to the school. Somewhere along the line schools, and much of society, have abdicated their responsibilities to provide guidance and safety for young people.  So given all that , why is it such a surprise that young people at schools of higher education are simply out of control?

It just has to be said!

It just has to be said.

I have not blogged in a long time as life with its incessant demands for participation have swept me away.   But today, two days out from an historic election ,I like everyone else needs to get my two cents in. It doesn't t matter who I voted for.  What I understand from my little myopic view of the world is that people in this country are done with same old same old from Washington. As I write this , coverage on TV is about how the New York Times,this country's flagship newspaper, missed the boat on election. Let me tell you who those young journalist's are. They are the sons and daughters of the wealthy elite that this country is currently designed to support. The majority of those young people are not from little dying towns in the middle of this country.   I m picking on the NY Times just cuz it represents the problem. We are a meritocracy. If you go to the best schools and get the highest GPA you have a chance to make it in this country.  You have money, connections and a perspective on life that is different from most.
     

This country is made up of millions of average Joe's who are struggling every single day just to make it.  Every single person in this country except for the wealthiest are just trying to get by. For the last twenty five years middle class folks have worked 2-3 jobs to stay afloat. Robert Reichs pointed out that the middle class is staying afloat on credit cards as well. College is the new high school except you have to pay a fortune to get in or come out with astronomical debt.  AND because business, big business, got Washington to pass IRA's etc to do away with pensions and pass on retirement responsibilities to the people this country started a downward spiral.   So you come out of school with over $100,000 in debt and you have to save for your future. Housing costs are astronomical.  Food, transportation, health care costs a lot.   People who are lucky enough to have employment ,pay for day care and eventually school supplies and after school stuff so their kids can get into college and be in debt and find no job afterwards.

And us old people. Don t get me started. We know that you cannot survive on Social Security even if you paid into it your entire life. But if you go back to work what you earn is limited until you reach that magic age of 66 plus.  Guess what folks?  Unless you have saved millions of dollars  you will not be able to live even then. And on it goes. Medicare? Lol! Find a really good doctor that accepts it? Hah! Those doctors can't make a living accepting Medicare.   Who benefits from Medicare? The insurance companies because the highest users of health care are picked up by the government .

Save money for retirement? Another hah!  The banks for the little folks are gone.  My daughter can pay 8.25% daily interest on her school loans even before she graduates, but a savings account returns interest that is laughable. AND you now get to pay for the privilege of having a savings account unless you can promise a $250,000 daily balance. REALLY?

So the average joe looks at someone who has come here from another country and thinks whatever they have they have taken from me and my family. Terror attacks await around every corner.  Etc.  so whatever your particular angst is - that 's where the anger is directed.  It s not rationale. It s human.  Our government is broken. It doesn't work for us even when a much needed health care reform bill is finally passed. It s too complicated it costs too much and covers too little.   It didn't factor in that health care is now a business that relies on Wall Street for survival.  Wall Street! The McDonaldization of America marches forward! Bigger is better! Efficiency rules!  We are widgets in the service of the rich! That s what the anger is about!

Life lived on CCTV

Why does this bother me? What? That your entire life can be pieced together the minute you step out of your house? The use of CCTV has become an accepted fixture in our society and yes other countries as well.. I didn't agree to this! In discussion with millennials about the pervasive invasion of our privacy, the standard response is if you don't do anything wrong you have nothing to worry about. But that is so not the point.

The End of Civilized Behavior?

The outrages have been a daily assault -so many videos of police beatings and shootings of unarmed civilians!  The discussion gets framed by matters of race. A recent outrage however perhaps showed us that what we are witnessing and experiencing may have less to do with race and more to do with a continuous descent into incivility.  The scene is a pool party in a Texas suburb that got over run by teenagers who heard on social media about a pool party!
Police were called and the kids scattered much to the chagrin and outrage of the "authorities!"
What we witnessed because it was captured on a cell phone video was a police officer assaulting a young teen age girl clad only in a bikini.  It's unnecessary to recount the vile details of his actions. It's not necessary to mention that this same officer drew his weapon. On kids! Once again the story began to be told via the perspective of race because the young girl on the ground being dragged by her hair as she cried for her mother was black.  But what we we really witnessing is basic incivility ! Who treats a child like that? What man( never mind that that man is a policeman sworn to protect and serve) lays his hands on a girl,a child in such a brutal manner! Is this what we've come to? Forget this police officer's training- we've witnessed enough police brutality to question that training.Where is his basic training as a human being? Didn't anyone teach him how to behave? How to treat another human being? A girl, no less.

So all the kids were running away! So what? Was he going to miss his quota? Weren't the police called to rid the pool club of these interlopers? Didn't  they succeed as the kids try to scatter to the wind?  So the point of tackling children and brandishing a gun was what?

We Were All Neglected!

All of sudden "free range children"  is a topic on the news.  Free range children refers to kids who are allowed to be off and play by themselves! In Silver Springs, Maryland such "free range children " were picked up by police and turned over to child protective services. Their parents were charged with neglect.  Those of us who grew up with such "neglect" can only shake our heads! We all went out and played out of range of the hovering protection of our parents.  We learned independence,creativity, and all kinds of survival skills.  Unlike the current generation that lives at home until they launch in their late twenties or thirties, we left home at 18 to go to school or to work and forged a future built on resilience and the enduring belief that we could take care of ourselves.

It has been apparent for a long time now that our country's children are in trouble. They are lost! Forced to compete for overpriced college slots that lead to disappointing jobs and massive debt,these kids do not demonstrate the ability to land on their own two feet.  We are reaping the rewards of day care parenting and helicopter parenting. We are seeing  what happens when children are programmed with hourly activities from an early age. I applaud those parents who are trying to free their children from the brain deadening routines of over programming.  Yes we were "neglected" and were "free range children" but we took our independence and hard won creativity and built lives we could be proud of!

Mental Illness Strikes Again?

Once again mental illness is at the center of conversation as the world grapples with the deliberate crashing of an airplane flown by a co pilot who it appears was in the throes of a major depression.  Yes it is a tragedy and heart breaking for all concerned. It is also an opportunity to talk about the real villains in this tragedy. Villains like  ignorance, denial and stigma. Pilots undergo routine evaluations however it is not clear whether these evaluations include a sophisticated psychological evaluation by an experienced mental health professional. And as we know, even an annual evaluation could miss a serious episode. So if a pilot seeks help from a general practitioner (by the way 95% of medications for mental illness are prescribed by general practitioners) what oversight and follow up care is provided. Much of the evaluations of pilots depend on self disclosure. Denial saves embarrassment and loss of your job. In this case the co pilot was given a note indicating he was not fit to fly. He ripped it up.  Stigma is a powerful deterrent to openness and honesty. What is the answer? Damned if I know!  Should there be a "duty to warn" similar to Tarasoff which obligates a mental health professional to warn a specific person of a specific threat has been made towards them. If anyone in a position to evaluate a pilot believes the pilot is unfit to fly they could  be obligated to report it.  Or if society could ever overcome stigma then the repercussions of seeking treatment would disappear and those in need would be helped. Just sayin'!